The present invention relates to a system for preserving and metering ingredients, together with a method for metering ingredients preserved in such a system.
The field of the present invention is the preservation of foodstuffs used in artisanal or semi-industrial processes, and more particularly the automated preparation of culinary preparations from these foodstuffs.
In a known manner, storage chambers are known that make it possible to preserve foodstuffs for long periods by means of low preservation temperatures in order to slow down or even prevent the development of germs and bacteria by said foodstuffs stored therein. These can be for example refrigerators, coolers or freezers depending on the storage temperatures chosen. The ingredients are placed in the storage chamber, optionally inside compartments, in order to optimize the arrangement thereof.
Automated machines are also known that produce culinary preparations, for example pizzas, by implementing storage tanks coupled with picking devices in order to pick, in a predetermined quantity, some of the ingredients preserved in the storage tanks. Each storage tank is then equipped with a motorized opening and closing mechanism in order to allow the extraction of the required quantity of ingredients.
The drawback of the systems implemented in such automated machines is the limitation on the number of different recipes that can generally be obtained. In fact, a compromise must generally be made between the number of storage tanks and the variety of possible recipes. According to a first variant, each tank can contain all of the ingredients necessary to prepare a given pizza recipe, that is, pizzas made from given types of ingredients. A sheeted pizza dough can then be placed below the tank for the selected recipe in order to receive all of the ingredients for that recipe simultaneously. The number of storage tanks necessary is then at least equal to the desired number of recipes to be obtained.
According to a second variant, each tank contains a limited number of types of ingredient, or even a single type of ingredient. Making varied recipes then involves providing as many tanks as types of ingredient forming the different recipes. One drawback of this second variant is that the sheeted pizza dough must then be moved below each tank containing one of the ingredients for the selected recipe. These successive movements result in the presence of a complex handling system that has a large space requirement. In practice, the space requirement of the storage tanks and the handling system makes it necessary to restrict the number of tanks, in order to limit the dimensions of the cooler, and therefore the manufacturing cost and energy consumption during use thereof. In addition, moving the pizza dough between the different tanks results in a relatively long ingredient loading time compared to the first variant. The total time taken to prepare a pizza is then extended.
Finally, for a given tank, the predetermined quantity of ingredients is generally loaded on the surface of the sheeted pizza dough by a complex system for moving said tank with respect to the sheeted pizza dough: either the sheeted pizza dough is loaded on a mobile carriage that moves below the tank dispensing the ingredients, or the tank moves over the sheeted pizza dough. The drawback of this loading system is that it is complex to implement and also consumes energy to ensure the relative movement of the pizza with respect to the tank from which the ingredients are dispensed. In addition, for a given programmed relative movement, the loading of said ingredients will be reproducible and such systems are not therefore compatible with the automated preparation of semi-traditional pizzas, for which the ingredients are not loaded in a totally reproducible manner from one pizza to another.
The object of the present invention is to overcome at least some of the problems set out above and also to result in other advantages.
Another purpose of the invention is to solve at least one of these problems by means of a new system for preserving and metering ingredients.
Another purpose of the present invention is to facilitate the management of a freezer and in particular the supply and preservation of the foodstuffs.
Another purpose of the present invention is to automate the extraction of the preserved foodstuffs.
Another purpose of the present invention is to reduce the energy consumption and the dimensions of a preservation chamber.
Another purpose of the present invention is to allow the precise selection of the type and quantities of foodstuffs extracted.
Another purpose is to speed up and simplify the loading of the foodstuffs on a substrate.
Another purpose of the present invention is to allow the loading of the foodstuffs evenly and randomly on a substrate during a single operation.